Winning lesson for Lake

Tuesday

With Jake Maranville fouled out, the Blue Streaks find way to close out McKinley and stay undefeated

LAKE TWP. The lesson is not fun or welcomed, but it is valuable.

And the Lake High School boys basketball team passed it in winning fashion Tuesday night.

With their best player and ball handler fouled out and McKinley clawing back in the game, the Blue Streaks made enough plays down the stretch to win 52-43 at their gym.

Stark County’s lone undefeated team, Lake (9-0, 5-0) stayed perfect in a game that was far from it. Play was choppy and physical, with inconsistent whistles contributing to the lack of flow in this Federal League contest.

Junior guard Jake Maranville picked up his fifth foul with 3:27 left, and McKinley’s James Howell made both free throws to cut the Bulldogs’ deficit to four points after they had trailed by 10 early in the quarter.

“I think when teams get a chance on the floor to fight that adversity in a game situation, it’s so much more valuable than trying to emulate that in practice,” Lake head coach Tom McBride said. “I think that’s going to be a valuable lesson for us and a lesson we know if that situation happens again we’ve got the belief and confidence that we can get through that.”

“We came together and said we’ve got to pick him up,” Mike Spotleson said. “He leads us a lot, so we had to help him out, get this win for him.”

Evans found Matt Spotleson for a layup with 1:45 left to push Lake’s lead back to six points.

“Poised” was the word of the night for McBride, and he thought his team showed it. The 5-foot-10 Casey, who had four assists and scored all seven of his points in the final 4:07, was at the forefront of that after battling foul trouble in the first half.

“You’ve got to keep scoring in those situations,” McBride said. “You’re not going to just hold the ball against a Canton McKinley. They’re just going to get possessions. I was proud of the way we stayed on the attack, and Kam led that charge there.”

The Blue Streaks used some transition opportunities to take a 10-2 first-quarter lead. From there, they settled into their pace, a controlled pace. The Bulldogs never fell behind by more than 13, but they never got closer than four despite forcing nine second-half turnovers.

McKinley head coach Rick Hairston explained the difficulty in trying to rally against Lake this way: “What they’re going to do is they’re going to run something on offense, and it doesn’t matter to them if they run it for a whole quarter. They’ll run it for a whole quarter until they get a layup. That’s almost rare in high school basketball because kids are so impatient.”

Lake also can sit down and defend. The big, physical Blue Streaks limited McKinley to 35.6 percent shooting from the field. They’re allowing 38.6 points a game this season, with no opponent scoring more than 46.

With a big league game at Jackson looming Friday, McBride likes where his Blue Streaks — ranked 14th in the Associated Press Division I State Poll — are at the moment.

“I still think this team can get better,” he said. “I like their attitude, their spirit, their togetherness. We still have some role players that are learning. I think as we go on, they have the ability to continue to get better. That’s what I want them to do. It’s a nice start, but ultimately we want to be better in March.”

Reach Josh at 330-580-8426

or josh.weir@cantonrep.com

On Twitter: @jweirREP

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